Stress

Question 1

Stress

Answer 1

Relative Prominence of syllables

Question 2

Acoustic correlates of stress

Answer 2

Stressed syllables may be LOUDER, LONGER or HIGHER PITCHED than the other syllables

Question 3

Primary and Secondary Stress

Answer 3

Some languages, like French, only have 1 stressed syllable no matter how long the word is
Many languages have more than just 1 stressed syllable in longer words
in this case there will also be 1 primary stress
but there can be 1 or more secondary stress

Question 4

Metrical grid

Answer 4

Assigns different stress values to different syllables
Each syllable gets 1 ‘x’
Secondary stress gets 1 additional ‘x’
Primary stress gets 2 additional ‘x’s
          x
x        x
x   x   x    x
æ lə bæ mə

Question 5

Alternating Stress

Answer 5

Because stress is relational/relative (prominence is a relative concept), we often get alternating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables

Examples:
English:
æ, lə ‘bæ mə (AL a BA ma)
‘al təɹ ,ne ʃən (AL ter NA tion)

Question 6

Typologies

Answer 6

Languages that employ stress are grouped into one of the 3 typologies:
lexical, paradigmatic or positional

Question 7

Positional

Answer 7

The same syllable position is always stressed (sometimes called ‘bounded’)
Georgian: always on the last syllable (ult)
Polish: always on the 2nd to last (penult)
Another language: on the 3rd to last (antepenult)

Question 8

Paradigmatic

Answer 8

Morphologically determined: Different word classes (parts of speech) have different stress patterns
Example:
Nouns have penult stress
Verbs are stressed on the ult syllable

English is primarily paradigmatic (but with exceptions)

Question 9

English Stress

Answer 9

Nouns are stressed on the penult or antepenult syllable (more on this alternation later)
diploma
marina
enigma
veranda

asparagus
syllable
camera

Question 10

English Stress

Answer 10

Verbs and Adjectives primarily have stress on the ult syllable
maintain
elect
object (vs. noun: object)
supreme
sincere
absurd

Again, there are exceptions…more to come on this

Question 11

Lexical Stress

Answer 11

Lexical stress (aka ‘free’ stress): relatively unpredictable
Russian is primarily lexical/unpredictable
English is partially lexical:
Nouns: canal vs. camel

Question 12

Further complication of stress systems: Weight

Answer 12

Some languages assign stress to heavy syllables only

Quantity Sensitivity (QS): heavy & light syllables matter when it comes to stress

Quantity Insensitivity (QI): the weight of a syllable doesn’t affect stress

Question 13

What makes a syllable heavy?

Answer 13

Moras!

1 mora: light
2 or more moras: heavy
Long vowels= 2 moras
V + C = 2 moras

Question 14

QS and Weight

Answer 14

2 principles/patterns:
Stress to Weight: light syllables can become heavy if in a position to be stressed (if stressed, then heavy)
Weight to Stress: heavy syllables attract weight (if heavy, then stressed)

Question 15

Stress to Weight: light syllables can become heavy if in a position to be stressed (if stressed, then heavy)

Ex. Hixkaryana vowels are lengthened in stressed syllables
to ‘ro: no ‘small bird’
ne ‘mo: ko ‘to: no ‘it fell’

Answer 15

Stress to Weight Patterns

Question 16

Wight to Stress Patterns

Answer 16

English: requires that all stressed syllables are heavy
Weight to Stress: heavy syllables attract weight (if heavy, then stressed)
If the pattern of stress falls on a light syllable, English skips that one and stresses the next

Question 17

The Metrical

Answer 17

The metrical foot
We put pairs of syllables together into a feet (aka binary feet)
We line them up from the start of the word or the end of the word and…we see what happens.

Question 18

Types of metrical feet

Answer 18

Trochaic: Pattern of SW (Strong, Weak aka Stressed, Unstressed)
Iambic: Pattern of WS (Weak, Strong aka Unstressed, Stressed)

Question 19

A second property of feet

Answer 19

Left or right alignment:
Are feet aligned to the left edge of the word or the right edge of the word?

Left/right headed: pattern within the foot
Left/right aligned: pattern of feet within the word

Question 20

How do you decide?

Answer 20

Find words with even numbers of syllables
Bracket the feet
Look within the foot to determine iambic or trochaic
Use this information to bracket feet in odd-numbered syllables- 1 syllable will always be left over
If it is at the left edge, then the word is right-aligned, if it is at the right edge, then it is left-aligned

Question 21

What kind of stress system does English have?

Answer 21

Primarily paradigmatic (see next slides)
But also somewhat lexical
Example: canal vs. camel

Question 22

Evidence of the paradigmatic system

Answer 22

Nouns are stressed on the penult or antepenult syllable

diploma
marina
enigma
veranda

asparagus
syllable
camera

Question 23

English is QS

Answer 23

Animal 		[‘æ.nə.,məl]
Alabama 		[,æ.lə.’bæ.mə] 
Reject (n) 		[‘ri:.dʒəkt]
Reject (v) 		[rə.’dʒɛkt]
Sometimes we need ambisyllabicity to make this happen

Alabama [,æ.lə.’bæ.mə]
reanalyzed as [,æ(l).lə.’bæ(m).mə]

Question 24

Affixing and stress

Answer 24

3 types of affixes
Neutral: Stressed syllable stays the same as it was in the root
Tonic: Affix gets stressed
Post-tonic: Syllable before the affix gets stressed

Question 25

Stress clash! and stress shift

Answer 25

Where is primary and secondary stress on the word ‘Tennessee’?
,Ten ne ‘see
What happens if you want to refer to the team ’Tennessee Titans’?
x x
x x x
x x x x x
,Ten ne ‘see ‘Ti. tans

x x
x x x
x x x x x
,Ten ne ‘see ‘Ti. tans